BRUSSELS (MNI) – All of the European Union’s 27 member states
should participate in the adoption of new rules to increase economic
governance, not just those in the Eurozone, European Commission
President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Wednesday.

High debt and deficit levels in many European countries have
pressured the Euro and prompted a E110 billion bail out of Greece by the
Eurozone member state and the International Monetary Fund.

In response to this, EU leaders said they would intensify economic
coordination to try and prevent future debt buildups by applying more
peer pressure to one another. The European Commission has suggested that
national budgets be peer-reviewed each year, but some countries —
including the UK — have opposed those plans because they say they
impose on their sovereignty.

“The Commission is very happy with the way in which the discussions
are going,” Barroso told reporters at a press conference. “There’s much
more agreement over those basic ideas…There seems to be more readiness
for us to focus on specific legislative proposals.”

He dismissed the idea that closer economic governance could be
restricted to the 16-countries that share the euro with the remaining 11
countries following separate guidelines.

It is “very important that the general framework be the same for
the Eurozone as for the non-Eurozone,” he said. “We have to be
pragmatic. It is true that in the Eurozone there are specific
responsibilities and they have to be recognised.”

He said collective decisions needed to be taken, because “the
impact of one country, in the Eurozone or outside the Eurozone, is felt
by all…We are living in the same union.”

Barroso said he didn’t see a need for a changes to the European
treaties at this stage.

“The institutions that exist are the ones that are in the [current]
Treaty and I believe that now our goal should be to reinforce the
authority of those institutions,” he said.

“The real problem in Europe is not the problem of new
institutions…It is not a time to come with a redesign of Treaties,” he
said.

He pointed to the recent change of Eurostat’s powers as an example
of what could be achieved without treaty changes.

“This does not require a change in the Treaty…it requires the
political will of the member states,” the Commission President said.

–Brussels: 0032 487 (0) 32 803 665, echarlton@marketnews.com

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